Press Release - "TRACES"

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NEW EXHIBITION AT GALERÍA DE LA RAZA

TRACES

An exhibition exploring the use of indigenous ideologies and contemporary artistic practices

Exhibition reception Friday, August 9, 2013

7pm-10pm

Exhibition August 9 – September 28, 2013

Gallery hours Tuesday-Saturday, 12pm-6pm

Public programs: August 10, August 11, September 28

Galería de la Raza is pleased to present TRACES, an exhibition featuring the work of five Mexican artists, all of whom are exhibiting for the first time in the United States. The artists interweave indigenous ideology into their contemporary artistic practice utilizing various media such as textile, collage, sound-based installation, and performance. Each artist uses a distinct visual language to articulate identities informed by a rich cultural ancestry, drawing upon the past to develop a layered understanding of present day place, space, and culture. A public reception will be held on Friday, August 9, 2013.

Through investigation, collaboration, and experimentation, all five artists produced a body of work illustrating the persistence of pre-colonial heritage in spite of colonization and globalization and draw on concepts such as indigenous autonomy, religious cosmovision, and ceremony. While some of the pieces pay homage to these pre-colonial practices, others present hybrid identities and new cultural myths.

Programming for TRACES is funded in part by the National Association of Latino Art and Culture’s Transcultural Remittance Grant and is being presented in collaboration with the Wixárika Research Center of Berkeley, California.

About the artists: E.D.E.L.O. Residencia (Chiapas) – E.D.E.L.O. Residencia showcases a series of performances developed in collaboration with various autonomous communities in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, MX. E.D.E.L.O. (En Donde Era La ONU) is a Spanish acronym for, Where the United Nations Used to Be. Inspired by the 1994 Indigenous Zapatista uprising, E.D.E.L.O. investigates how art and artists can take on the supposed role of such institutional bodies, like the UN and create alternative systems in response to the violent and harmful ones in place.

Throughout its body of work, E.D.E.L.O utilizes the strategy of “Arte Urgente” (Urgent Art), an artistic practice created in Chiapas, MX developed to respond to immediate cultural, social, and political events while dealing with concept, radicalizing emotion, and craft.

Daniel Godinez Nivón (Mexico City) - Godinez Nivón is a multimedia artist based in Mexico City. Originally from Oaxaca, Godinez Nivón was raised in the Mexican state of Chiapas. He studied visual arts at the National Academy of Arts, UNAM and is currently pursuing a Masters in Arts and Designs at San Carlos Academy (UNAM). Godinez Nivón has had solo shows at the Tlaltelolco Cultural Center, UNAM and group shows at MUAC, The University Museum of Contemporary Art. Godinez Nivón participated in the print based program, Medios Multiples and was awarded the prestigious Jóvenes Creadores grant from the Fondo Nacional de la Cultural y las Artes for his project, Asamblea Musical, which will be exhibited in part at Galería de la Raza. In this experimental, sound-based project, Godinez Nivón studies the relationship between art and life through the Tequio, a traditional form of collective decision making.

Jimena Mendoza (Mexico City) - Mendoza studied at Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado (ENPEG) “La Esmeralda,” in Mexico City, from 1998 to 2003. The same year she specialized in Pedagogy of Arts at the Centro Nacional de las Artes (CENART) and in 2008-2009, specialized in the Arts Appliqué program at the L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure Des Arts Decoratifs (ENSAD), Paris, France. She was awarded the Jóvenes Creadores grant by Fondo Nacional de la Cultural y las Artes (FONCA) in both 2003-2004, and 2011-2012. In 2004, she participated in Interventions at Centro Nacional de las Artes. In 2006, she was in residency at Banff Centre, Alberta-Canada and in 2008 at The Brownstone Foundation, Paris France.

Through researching native cultures, Mendoza seeks to come closer to understanding unique cosmovisions and formats for constructing, organizing, and symbolizing distinct cultural realities. Mendoza’s intention is to recuperate and work with various cultural aspects to unveil both the coincidences and contradictions of human construction. Rather than searching for pure traditional forms, the artist seeks to discover the alloys, hybrids, syncretism, and impure states that lead to a deeper discussion and dialogue on influence, adaptability, and cultural perseverance.

Roberto [Beto] Ruiz (Oaxaca) - Ruiz’s family are traditional textile weavers from Teotitlán, Oaxaca. After traveling to Tijuana and studying with contemporary artists for 10 years, Ruiz returned to Teotitlán to work within his family’s tradition and focus on rescuing lost Zapoteca rug patterns. His work is based on concepts of memory, translation, modernization, and cultural legacy. Ruiz founded Taller 8, a workshop which merges contemporary artists with local artisans in the development of new work based on images and experiences generated from the surrounding region. Ruiz’s works include a series of modern day codices, which are derived from images of circuit boards as well as rugs produced utilizing materials such as plastic bags.

Utari Blackbox (Jalisco) – Blackbox is an entrepreneurial program developed by Gustavo Fricke to facilitate the appreciation of traditional Mexican craft through contemporary design. Developed in Oaxaca in 2004, the company has collaborated with a variety of communities to create an innovative handcraft industry. Every product is unique, builds on traditional form and experiments with new ideas. Utari Blackbox developed by Gustavo Fricke and Raquel de Anda, is an offshoot of the program and has a specific aim of building cultural preservation of the Wixárika (Huichol). The project emerged as a response to threats that are currently being faced by the Wixárika, such as market saturation, environmental blight and cultural eradication. The Wixárika are revered as an indigenous culture that has resisted colonization and acknowledge a coexistence with nature through an intricate spiritual cosmology - a wisdom which is deeply embedded in their elaborate art forms. Through various methods of collaboration, Utari Blackbox seeks to translate a portion of this knowledge into a line of contemporary, design-based objects that will be made available in diverse markets.

From January-June 2013, Fricke and de Anda developed stage one of the project, consisting of a series of workshops with rural and urban artisans to develop a plan for collaborating on a line of objects. The methods were built on Blackbox’s fundamental premise of developing culturally resonant objects through interdisciplinary exchange and sustainable practice. Currently, the group is in development stages for the final development of objects, which will be made public in November of 2013. For TRACES, Utari Blackbox is thrilled to exhibit a sneak peak of some of the objects which are being developed for the final line and will present process based images of workshops and collaborations developed throughout 2013.

About the guest curator: Raquel de Anda is an independent curator, art writer, and creative director currently residing in Mexico City. From 2003-2010, de Anda served as Associate Curator at Galería de la Raza, a contemporary Latino arts organization based in San Francisco, CA. Recent exhibitions include The Ripple Effect: Currents of Socially Engaged Art at the Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C. and Art in Odd Places, New York, NY. De Anda is an active contributor to LatinArt.com. Her writing will be featured in an anthology of works edited by Bill Kelley and Grant Kester titled, Collective Situations: Readings in Latin American Art 1995-2010. Currently, de Anda is researching and interviewing alternative, artist-run spaces throughout Mexico, while working with collaborator, Gustavo Fricke, on a collaborative, design based project with Huichol artisans titled UtariBlackbox.

Public programs: In conjunction with TRACES, Galería will hosta series of panel discussions and workshops approaching the idea of cultural duality and various methods of cultural preservation as understood by Wixáritari (Huichol) currently living in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Saturday, August 10 @ 2pm – panel discussion on sacred sites and rights to the city with Huichol activists M+ireme / Herminio Ramirez Diaz and Hayuaneme / Antonio García Mijarez. Moderated by Diana Negrín de Silva PhD, of the Wixárika Research Center (Berkeley, CA). Free and open to the public.

Saturday, September 28 @ 2pm – artist panel discussion moderated by curator Raquel de Anda. Free and open to the public.

FOR CALENDAR EDITORS

Galería de la Raza presents

TRACES

An exhibition exploring the use of indigenous ideologies and contemporary artistic practices

Exhibition reception: Friday, August 9, 2013 – 7pm

Free and open to the public

Saturday, August 10 @ 2pm – a discussion on sacred sites and rights to the city with Huichol activists M+ireme / Herminio Ramirez Diaz and Hayuaneme / Antonio García Mijarez moderated by Diana Negrín de Silva, PhD of the Wixárika Research Center of Berkeley, CA.